

Weisman and his team, including writer/story editor Michael Reaves, were ahead of their time with Gargoyles. “They were like, ‘Yyyyyeah, sure you can. I’m like, “Well, yes, but I can do other things too,” he tells Polygon. Gargoyles creator Greg Weisman says that thinking “made it difficult for me to get work back in the day,” because studios knew he specialized in serialized storytelling. So every episode was meant to start and end with the same status quo, with nothing changing. It may be hard to remember these days, when long-arc animated stories are the norm, but when Gargoyles launched, most American animated TV shows were designed for syndication, meaning they might air or be watched in any order. For American animation buffs, Gargoyles was a true revelation back in the 1990s: a fantasy show with deep worldbuilding, an epic expanding story, rich characters, and above all, a developing narrative. But for a lot of longtime fans, one of the platform’s most exciting offerings was one of its least promoted: the entire run of the 1994-1997 animated series Gargoyles. When Disney Plus launched in November 2019, The Walt Disney Company focused its promotional efforts around original shows like The Mandalorian and legacy content, from its animated classics to the Star Wars and Marvel Cinematic Universe features.
